Liberal Studies Program Information

Liberal Studies offers a broad-based interdisciplinary major for students interested in careers in elementary school teaching (K-8) or for individuals who don't want a narrowly focused departmental major.

Liberal Studies Program Review

Liberal Studies will complete a program review in 2014-2015. This is simultaneous with its curricular revision for the semester calendar beginning in Fall 2016. A program review can be just a "task" or it can be an opportunity to revisit goals and objectives in a fundamental way. The same is true for conversion from a quarter term calendar to a semester calendar. To get some sense of the Liberal Studies sense of program revitalization, check out the transformation statement that has been submitted for curricular review to the School, the General Education Committee, and the Academic Senate.

The proposed Liberal Studies program includes two concentrations: the Credential Concentration, for students who hope to become teachers and pursue their teaching credentials, and the General Concentration, for students who want a broad liberal arts education but aren’t necessarily planning to go into teaching.

Most students undertaking the Liberal Studies with a General Concentration want a general liberal arts program of study that provides opportunities to study a broad range of subjects in the arts and sciences. These students are not preparing to become school teachers. In our Q2S transformation, we have attempted to provide these students with a broad experience that builds on general education and deepens as students select both a disciplinary minor and a focused, upper division theme, beyond the themes developed as part of general education. The Q2S General Concentration requires students to complete the standard general education requirements, but then allows lots of flexibility in how students will broaden and deepen their education.

The Liberal Studies Credential Concentration includes five options, all of which prepare students to become elementary school (K-6) teachers. All Credential Concentration options share the same 82-unit core, consisting of 74 units specific to the LBST major and 8 non-overlapping GE units. Options add an additional 12 to 42 units to the core. The Q2S transformation of the Credential Concentration was designed to accomplish three major goals:

Coursework in the new concentration is aligned with content from the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards that these prospective teachers will one day have to teach in their own classrooms. These standards are now required approaches to K-12 teaching in the state of California. Using this new approach in a Liberal Studies math class, for example, would involve not only learning college-level algebra, geometry, and statistics, but also learning in the same hands-on and critical-thinking-centered way that they will someday teach their students . This is a critical improvement for our next generation of teachers.

Students will also learn content across a broad collection of disciplines in a way that is aligned with the eight content areas of the CSET exam—an exam all credential program applicants must pass before being admitted. In the Q2S transformation, faculty from all the departments offering courses in Liberal Studies developed their courses with specific CSET content in mind. The broad CSET domains include Reading, Language & Literature; Mathematics; Science; History & Social Science; Visual & Performing Arts; Physical Education & Health; and Development.

The third goal of the new Credential Concentration was to create a program that was more efficient and coherent. The prior program gave students far too many choices in courses that could be taken to meet program requirements (e.g., a choice of 10 different courses to fulfill a particular requirement). The Q2S transformation of the Credential Concentration recognizes the importance of choice and flexibility but is more intentional in the options that are offered.